10. We hope that soon-to-be President George Bush doesn't mistake his four-vote electoral college victory for a mandate to listen to the polluters and developers who would scrap environmental protections faster than you can say Chesapeake Bay.

9. We hope that Anne Arundel County Executive Janet Owens, after making good in 2000 on her vow to bolster school funding, will focus in 2001 on a second important promise: curbing unwise and unsightly development that threatens the quality of our lives.

8. We hope that Calvert County planners put on the brakes lest fast-food, big-box development race up and down all major roads - and people get the wrong idea about what's meant by the Land of Pleasant Living.

7. We hope to break out the delighted laughter that rises when just the right thing lands in just the right place at just the right time when we see the finalists' ideas for what to put inside the West Street Circle. We hope to avoid both tears and the other kind of laughter.

6. We hope for an enlightened debate on proposed Chesapeake Bay crabbing regulations - along with the collective will to make sacrifices now to preserve not just a fishery but our cultural heritage.

5. We hope that people will take a clue from California's electricity shortages, soaring utility bills and punishing gas prices to realize the need for conservation each day of our lives.

4. We hope that American auto manufacturers will start making their own versions of that brilliant new technology, hybrid electric-gas cars, so that we can "Buy American" while saving money and cutting down on Bay-damaging tailpipe emissions.

3. We hope that the new satellite TV companies won't follow our cable TV companies in behaving like the Bulgarian Ministries of Rates and Services.

1. We hope that Baysiders (us included) will resolve this year to slow the pace of their lives so as to carve out at least three - why not four or eight? - hours more each week to share with families and friends in our blessed and beautiful Chesapeake Country.